Okay, there is intelligent life?
Finally, we have made contact.
Through the cold, silent vacuum of health care, we have received a message. We are working feverishly to decipher it, but we have been able to ascertain that it is a friendly message. It reads something like . . . "Oops, someone misunderstood what we were doing."
Apparently when doctors have an ultrasound done on a person's arm to check for veins (or is it arteries . . . nope veins) suitable for dialysis, that does not mean that they intend to PERFORM dialysis.
Our bad. Turns out they were looking IN CASE they wanted to PERFORM dialysis.
Okay, here it is. Technically, Mom is in renal failure, but that means, in this case, that her kidney function is abnormal. This translates to her having 20 percent function. That is not as dire as it sounds, but it is serious. They expect that once they get the blood infection sorted out, she should rise to around 35 percent function. And with therapy, they should get it even higher than that. None of these levels are such that they'd have her hooked up to the aforementioned DIALYSIS machine.
So they will be moving her to a nursing facility so that they can monitor her antibiotic IV (since Medicare will not pay to have the drip done at home (broken, broken broken healthcare). Now, I have to get her a cell phone, because the nursing home does not have phone in the rooms.
Say what?
I guess this is so we can put our elderly parents in home and not have to feel guilty when they call to talk to us? WTF?
This adventure continues . . . but I do have one piece of good news that comes from all this. This morning they were going to move Mom to the nursing home and she told them she wasn't going anywhere until they got the doctor in to tell her what the heck was going on.
I guess she's going to live after all.
Through the cold, silent vacuum of health care, we have received a message. We are working feverishly to decipher it, but we have been able to ascertain that it is a friendly message. It reads something like . . . "Oops, someone misunderstood what we were doing."
Apparently when doctors have an ultrasound done on a person's arm to check for veins (or is it arteries . . . nope veins) suitable for dialysis, that does not mean that they intend to PERFORM dialysis.
Our bad. Turns out they were looking IN CASE they wanted to PERFORM dialysis.
Okay, here it is. Technically, Mom is in renal failure, but that means, in this case, that her kidney function is abnormal. This translates to her having 20 percent function. That is not as dire as it sounds, but it is serious. They expect that once they get the blood infection sorted out, she should rise to around 35 percent function. And with therapy, they should get it even higher than that. None of these levels are such that they'd have her hooked up to the aforementioned DIALYSIS machine.
So they will be moving her to a nursing facility so that they can monitor her antibiotic IV (since Medicare will not pay to have the drip done at home (broken, broken broken healthcare). Now, I have to get her a cell phone, because the nursing home does not have phone in the rooms.
Say what?
I guess this is so we can put our elderly parents in home and not have to feel guilty when they call to talk to us? WTF?
This adventure continues . . . but I do have one piece of good news that comes from all this. This morning they were going to move Mom to the nursing home and she told them she wasn't going anywhere until they got the doctor in to tell her what the heck was going on.
I guess she's going to live after all.
posted by (jim) Bo Ba Log at 5:16 PM
1 Comments:
I thought I could get away with letting anyone comment, but now I've turned on word verification and you need to be a member to comment.
That way, if you spam me, I'll sic the porn spammers on you . . . I just ask them to take your email address off their list. ;-)
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